


What's in a name

by Tuvstarrs



Category: Countdown to Countdown (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, LLF Comment Project, Lillium, Lillium refuses to get cornered, Short speculative piece, Spoilers, honestly, mentions of character that has not been revealed yet, what aren't you telling Iris?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-01 23:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13305645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tuvstarrs/pseuds/Tuvstarrs
Summary: Lillium helps Iris rinse the ink off of him, and tries not to let his worries be shown.





	What's in a name

**Author's Note:**

> This is a small speculative scene which takes place straight after the latest chapter. So, spoilers included.
> 
> Also, I took some liberties with the description of a canon character that has yet to be properly revealed; so far, to my knowledge, we only know that Lillium knew him and that his name was (is?) Irid.

“I knew an Iris who threw up ink before.”

The words had just slipped out of him in a desperate attempt to comfort the boy in his arms, and he could have kicked himself for it. Luckily Iris seemed too distracted by his current condition to notice. Hoisting him up on his feet, Lillium threw an arm around Iris back to support him and dragged him out back to help him clean himself.

Little Irid

He had just been a boy, a sandy-blonde, blue-eyed child who didn’t deserve any of it. Just thinking about him made Lillium’s stomach churn, and he promised himself, again, not to let anything happen to Iris. He might be older than the Iris Lillium once knew had been, but he sure wasn’t any more experienced in life outside the lab. He was just as innocent as a child and almost as helpless.

Or, well… perhaps not as innocent as a child, Lillium mused when he heard him curse under his breath about the disgusting taste of ink in his mouth, but still… almost as helpless.

As he helped Iris wash the ink off, the nagging notion about what had happened to make Iris throw up in the first place refused to leave Lillium alone, creating a heavy weight in his stomach that only seemed to grow the more he thought about it. From what he knew, Iris hadn’t used his powers at all since the save point, where he must have used them at least once to pull out the key and unlock the mansion. So… could he have done a reset? Had he experienced something terrible that Lillium wasn’t even aware of? If he had, was he aware of it? Also, would one reset be enough to make him overexert himself like this? Or… had he been forced to do more than one? As horrifying as the thought was, it seemed to be the most likely of scenarios. Iris had been by his side pretty much since he got him out of that creepy institution. That also explained why he had seemed so jumpy when he woke. He had seemed surprised by where he was, and… the fact that Lillium was there. Had they been separated somehow?

Shaking his head, Lillium forcibly pushed the unwelcomed thoughts out of his head. Playing a guessing game offered little benefit right now, and his focus was needed elsewhere.

“Feelin’ better now?” He asked once they had gotten most of the ink off of Iris while dipping his own, bandage-covered hands in the river to give them a quick rinse as well. The ink had stained the bandages but there wasn’t much he could do about that right now, he would just have to change them later.

“Um, yeah. Think so,” Iris mumbled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand one last time. As he sat up a bit straighter his eyes darted around the clearing nervously and his whole body tensed. In flight mode. It was painfully clear that he was on edge and Lillium’s brows furrowed in response to seeing him like that. Something had definitely happened, and Lillium had no frickin clue of what.

And if he had no idea, he couldn’t offer any help or reassurance. First things first though.

“If you’re feeling better, I can make some more food. Feel like eating?”

“Ah, um… na, I’m good. We should get going, shouldn’t we?” Iris asked, his eyes diverted away from Lillium’s and still darting around, searching for something in the outskirts of the forest.

“Sure thing. Let me just grab my bag and we’ll be on our merry way,” he agreed, resolutely keeping his voice cheery. Better to get going anyhow— if this was the place where it had happened then it was all the more reason to put as much distance between them and whatever the threat was as possible. He didn’t miss how Iris opted to walk closer to him than before, nor that he was the one to reach out and grab Lillium’s hand—rather than the other way around—but chose not to say anything about it. Now was not the time.

…Or perhaps it was.

Once outside again he managed to take a whole sum of two steps towards the camp before being roughly pulled back by a frantic Iris who stared up at him with terror practically screaming at him through those charcoal-glinting orbs of his. 

“What the- What’s wrong?”

“W-We can’t go that way. We have to find another way. I mean-” Iris stammered before cutting himself off.

Yeah, something had definitely happened here and right now he couldn’t afford the luxury of allowing Iris to take his time to process it and tell him.

“Hey, Iris. Something happened, didn’t it? I’m sorry but I need you to tell me what!” He pushed, a bit too forceful—he knew that—but the urgency with which Iris clutched his hand and pulled him back made him more nervous than he’d like to admit. He could feel his skin crawl and the hair on the back of his neck rising with the tension in the air.

“It… yeah, okay. Something did happen. We were hunted, attacked. Spawn campers, three of them, and two dogs! They were waiting for us a little way ahead! We can’t stay here!”

At first, Lillium thought it seemed like Iris didn’t want to talk about it at all, and that the words were being drawn out of him against his will, but as soon as Iris stumbled on them it became painfully clear just how urgent his message really was.

They couldn’t go that way.

He wasn’t even going to try to go up against three campers and two dogs. They only had one alternative.

To run, and hope that they hadn’t been spotted already.

At least this time they had a head start. All they could do was pray that it would be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of LLF Comment Project, whose goal is to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites:
> 
> Short comments
> 
> Long comments
> 
> Questions
> 
> Constructive criticism
> 
> “<3” as extra kudos
> 
> Reader-reader interaction
> 
> LLF Comment Builder
> 
> This author replies to comments.


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